Chapter 23
Sparky prised her jaws open with a spoon handle. Once she was off me she allowed the boys in blue to take her away. Sparky cleaned up my ear with a wet cloth whilst I put a tentative hand down my Y-fronts and gingerly explored the contents. He handed me a tea towel and told me to keep it pressed against the side of my head.
'Well, at least we know what to call you from now on,' he said.
'What?' I groaned.
'Van Gogh,' he replied.
'I'd have thought Goebbels,' suggested Nigel.
'It's not funny,' I snapped, somewhere between laughing and crying.
'And if you've knackered my front door you can bloody well pay for a new one.'
'You're right, Charlie, it's not funny,' Sparky admitted, hooking his hands under my shoulders. 'C'mon, let's get you to hospital. Can you stand up?'
They did some nifty microsurgery on my ear and told me it would soon be as good as new. When they learned that the person who'd bitten me had advanced AIDS they handled me with rubber gloves and spoke in whispers.
My right testicle looked reasonably normal, but its partner resembled a ripe aubergine. No treatment was offered. 'We'll just see how it goes,' the doctor said, adding that he'd have another look at the ear in a week. Two nurses, female, said they'd check my goo lies again tomorrow morning.
In the afternoon a woman in civilian clothes with a comfortable face came to visit me. She had a permanent smile, as if she were dosing her HRT patch with cocaine. She introduced herself and told me she was an AIDS counsellor.
The gist of it was that I should think carefully before I decided to have a test. Even if it proved negative the fact that I had been tested might lead to difficulties with life insurance or obtaining a mortgage. I should ask myself if I really needed to know.
'Of course I bloody well need to know,' I growled at her.
In which case, she reassured me, the news was not all bleak it was possible to be HIV positive and not develop the disease for as long as twenty years. As nobody had heard of AIDS that long ago I took this information with a pinch of scepticism. When she went into the bit about anal and oral intercourse I told her I was tired and pulled the blankets over my head. Her parting shot was that everything we had said was confidential. Who told you? I thought. She scared the willies out of me.
Modern NHS hospitals have a menu system for mealtimes. Every day you are given a list of the following day's dishes, upon which you tick your selections. Unfortunately this means that on your first day you have to have what the previous occupant of the bed chose on his last day. I was following a diabetic rabbit on hunger strike. I vowed revenge on the next hapless soul to lie here.
Sam Evans came in the evening, bearing a magazine on trout fishing. He looked tired.
'How did you know I was interested in trout fishing, Sam?' I asked.
'I didn't. Are you?'
'Not especially. Wouldn't mind having a go, though.'
'That's what I thought, so it's what I'm prescribing for you. How are you feeling?'
'Worried.'
'I guessed you might be, so I've been doing some swatting.'
'Just make me one little promise, please,' I begged.
'What's that, Charlie?'
'To be honest with me.'
He nodded. 'OK. Well, the news is not too bad, although it could be better. The basic facts are that if she infected you it will take about eight weeks for you to make sufficient antibodies to be detected by a blood test. That's what we look for, antibodies.'
'So I won't know for another eight weeks?'
'Afraid not. Plus another week for the test. However, the bright side is that there is no documented case anywhere in the world of AIDS being contracted through a bite. As you know from your work with DNA, there are blood cells in saliva, but the quantity of virus present is infinitesimal, and there is also an agent present that inactivates it.
That's the good news.'
'However…'
'However… I've just examined her, Charlie. She's in the hospital wing at Filton Green.'
'You have been busy.'
'It's in a good cause. I can't say I'm happy about what I saw. The disease has affected her brain dementia although I suspect she was on the way before she caught it. You saw the lesions on her face; well, the inside of her mouth is just as bad. Her gums are ulcerated and bleeding. The truth is, Charlie, we know so little about it. Up to today I knew next to nothing. I'd be a liar if I said I thought you were in the clear.'
I pursed my lips and focused on the big paper clip holding my notes at the foot of the bed. 'So we sit tight and take the tests in eight weeks,' I said.
'That's right. The risk is slim, extremely slim, but in my judgement it's there.'
He told me that the incidence of HIV and AIDS was relatively low in Yorkshire, and I might receive a more educated assessment from a London doctor, but my brief experience with the counsellor had taught me that peddling optimism was part of the treatment. The biggest part. I trusted Sam.
There were other illnesses she could have passed on to me, some serious, but they faded into insignificance compared with the big A. As a precautionary measure a cocktail of exotic chemicals was injected into my bloodstream.
I asked the nurse for something to make me sleep, and it worked. It was only a pill, unfortunately. After breakfast I made it to the toilet without too much discomfort and removed the bandage from around my head. The ear didn't look too bad, so I put my clothes on and inched my way to the front entrance. I saw a sign pointing to Ward 4B, where Annabelle was, but didn't follow it. In the foyer is a bank of pay phones with the numbers of taxi firms prominently displayed. I rang one, and asked him to take me home. The two nurses were due for a disappointment when they came to make their examination. One of them was black, the other white. How appropriate, I'd thought at the time.
I locked my door, pulled the phone out and went to bed for nearly two days. Gilbert came round and gave me a telling-off and progress reports on my two murderers. Dewhurst was pulling round but not saying anything, Rhoda was sinking fast and doubtful for standing trial.
'He came out of jail and passed it on to her. Can you believe it?' I asked.
Gilbert shook his head.
'And she still loved him. He did that to her and she still loved him.'
'It's affected her brain,' he said. 'Apparently it can do that, in a few cases. I don't think she was all there to begin with. And what about you? How do you intend spending your enforced rest?'
'I think I'll go away for a few days, as soon as I can get about OK.
Have a change of scenery.'
'Good idea, but what about Annabelle?' ' Annabelle? She's making good progress. I rang about an hour ago.' I didn't tell him that I hadn't asked to be put through to her.
'What about seeing her? I'll take you, if you want.'
I sat and inspected my fingernails for a couple of minutes, before saying: 'Gilbert, there's an outside chance that I've been infected. If 11 take eight, nine weeks before we know, one way or the other. I've..
I've decided not to see Annabelle again until it's all over.'
He sat up, looking shocked.
I was quite calm. I said: 'I'll never let it affect me like it did Rhoda. If I've got it, it's better we finish right now.'
'Does she know?' he asked.
I shook my head. 'When Sam came to see me I asked him to deliver a message. That the woman who shot her was in custody and I was safe, but I'd gone down with this flu bug that's going round, so I was staying away
